Mrs. Cecilia Razovsky Davidson Dead at 77, Aided Immigrants and Refugees

Mrs. Cecilia Razovsky Davidson, a social worker and civil servant who devoted her career to aiding immigrants and refugees, died in San Diego, California Sept. 28 at the age of 77, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today. Mrs. Davidson, who was active in Jewish communal affairs even after retiring seven years ago, was the first Jewish civil servant hired to do refugee resettlement. She organized the Coordinating Committee for Refugee Resettlement which later became the National Refugee Service.

Mrs. Davidson was born in St. Louis and started her career teaching English to foreigners at the Jewish Educational Alliance there. Later she worked in Washington, D.C. as inspector of the Children’s Bureau and afterwards became secretary in the immigrant aid department of the National Council of Jewish Women. In 1933 she was selected to head a committee of immigration experts appointed by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to study conditions on Ellis Island, then an immigrant reception center.